The World Is Looking on in Disbelief, if not Horror, America

 For a bit of what Italy and Europe and the world are seeing as they look on at America.

Europe stunned by American coronavirus response as US approaches five million infections

The United States' failure to contain the spread of coronavirus has been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe

"'We Italians always saw America as a model,' said Massimo Franco, columnist with daily Corriere della Sera. 'But with this virus we've discovered a country that is very fragile, with bad infrastructure and a public health system that is non-existent.'"

Much of the incredulity in Europe stems from the fact that America had the benefit of time, European experience and medical know-how to treat the virus that the continent itself didn't have when the first Covid patients started filling intensive care units.

Yet, more than four months into a sustained outbreak, the US is about to hit an astonishing milestone of five million confirmed infections, easily the highest in the world.

Thanks, Mr. President.

Thanks, Republicans.

Catholics Hit a New Low

We've known Catholic leaders, mostly Priests, have abused children and students and not for just years, which would be horrible enough, not just decades--even more frightening--but for hundreds of years. Centuries. Catholic leaders have been abusing, sexually abusing children of the Church and for centuries.

It's a fact.

Stunning and unforgivable as all that is, it's a documented fact.

And it's across not just a nation.

Not just nations.

Not just a continent.

But across continents.

Across the world.

And again, for centuries.

It should be unbelievable.

Sadly, very, very sadly, it's not unbelievable.

Far from it.

Now, the impossible has happened.

It's gotten worse.

Much worse.

They've outdone themselves. There's another new discovery, this week.

Pope admits clerical abuse of nuns including sexual slavery

It is stunning the continuing revelations that seem to take place within this Church. 

You wouldn't think you could outdo abusing children. But they've done it.

Here's hoping there are no further revelations out there from these people (no pun intended).

Hopefully this is the last, worst thing they'll have to also admit to.

At what point, Catholics, are you going to say "Enough!"

At what point are you people going to rein these people in?

Quote of the Day -- Sunday Edition

Some Takeaways On the World's Happiest Nations Report

The world's happiest nations were announced today by the by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations.

World's happiest countries named

Takeaways?

--The US isn't the happiest

--The US isn't in the top 3

--The US isn't in the top 5

--The US isn't even in the top 10

--The US is in the 13th position

Here's what I love.

The top ten "happiest nations"?

Socialist.

All Socialist.

Every one.

Here's another kicker. Another takeaway. Frankly, it's one more slam on us, the US.

Israel ranks higher in happiness than the US.

Israel.

Surrounded by their enemies. Set upon and attacked, not infrequently, by Palestinians yet they have a higher happiness rating than we do here in the United States.


So, America.  Could we learn some things here?

Please?

Soon as possible?

Here's one:  The lady was right.

We are #Strongertogether.

Links:

World Happiness Report Update 2016

World Happiness Report - Wikipedia

America Has the Worst Vacation Policies 

Of Any Developed Country

Once again, U.S. has most expensive, least effective health care

Americans are much, much more likely to be killed by guns than  people in other countries

Americans are paying more for slower Internet 

Quote of the Day -- Sunday Edition

Quote of the Day -- Sunday Edition

Quote of the Day -- Sunday Edition

Quote of the Day -- On Institutionalized Wrong(s)

Born this day, 1909

Rita Levi-Montalcini was an Italian Nobel Laureate honored for her work in neurobiology. She was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with colleague Stanley Cohen for the discovery of nerve growth factor.

In 1986 the Nobel Prize for medicine went to Rita Levi-Montalcini.

In troubled times, during the dictatorship of Mussolini, Rita had secretly studied nerve fibers in a makeshift lab hidden in her home.

Years later, after a great deal of work, this tenacious detective of the mysteries of life discovered the protein that multiplies human cells, which won her the Nobel.

She was about eighty by then and she said, "My body is getting wrinkled, but not my brain. When I can no longer think, all I'll want is help to die with dignity."

A brilliant woman, a brilliant, achieved woman and she spent some time right here in Missouri at our own St. Louis Washington University (see first link, below):

After the war (WWII), her family returned to Turin and Levi-Montalcini resumed her position as an assistant at the University of Turin Institute of Anatomy. Two articles that Levi-Montalcini had published in foreign scientific journals interested Viktor Hamburger, head of the Zoology Department of Washington University in St. Louis.  In September 1947 Rita Levi-Montalcini accepted Hamburger’s invitation to collaborate with him as a research associate. Though she initially planned to stay at Washington University for less than one year, Levi-Montalcini stayed for thirty years. She was named an associate professor of Zoology in 1951, and a full professor in 1958. In the early 1960s Levi-Montalcini began dividing her time between St. Louis and Italy.

Links:

Rita Levi-Montalcini (b. 1909) - Washington University

Rita Levi-Montalcini - Wikipedia

Rita Levi-Montalcini - Biography - Medical Professional

Rita Levi-Montalcini - Biographical - Nobelprize.org

Rita Levi-Montalcini obituary | Science | The Guardian

Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, a Revolutionary

A Profile of Rita Levi-Montalcini - Scientific American

Rita Levi-Montalcini | The Economist

Economic Quote of the Day

Quote of the day -- Sunday Edition

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Happy National Ravioli Day!

You heard it here first.  Go, enjoy!

Quote of the day--from Pope Francis

Which, of course, helps explain this:

Quote of the day--this Pope on unfettered Capitalism

 

We need more of that "changey/hopey" thing.

 

We need far more equity, more fairness.

 

Hell, we need more morality in business and society.

 

 

 

Quote of the day--on Capitalism

 

There goes the Republican platform.

 

Links:

 

Pope Francis calls unfettered capitalism 'tyranny' and urges rich to share wealth

 

Pope Francis Calls Unfettered Capitalism 'A New Tyranny

 

 

 

Let's put a few very recent weather events in perspective

Naturally, we are all likely extremely aware of what has been reported to be the largest typhoon ever, hitting the Philippines so recently:

Philippines Disaster Leaves Millions Without Homes

And the estimates of those killed in this historic weather disaster are still being tallied, it's so bad.

And we're certainly aware of this weekend's tornados all over the Eastern one-third of the country, sure.  But did you know this?

Not to be done there, are you aware of this natural disaster, just now unfolding?

Deadly 'apocalyptic' storm floods Sardinia

So there you are.  Three really large weather events--catastrophes, really--all within what? 2 weeks?

At what point do we start doing something about all this?

At what point do we all accept that the way we all live, collectively, isn't sustainable?

And that it's likely killing fairly large numbers of us?



 

Something the Pope and Catholic Church did so rightly, back in 1839

But that was totally, utterly ignored by the rest of the world:

In 1839, Gregory wrote that:

[W]e have judged that it belonged to Our pastoral solicitude to exert Ourselves to turn away the Faithful from the inhuman slave trade in Negroes and all other men. [...] [D]esiring to remove such a shame from all the Christian nations, having fully reflected over the whole question and having taken the advice of many of Our Venerable Brothers the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, and walking in the footsteps of Our Predecessors, We warn and adjure earnestly in the Lord faithful Christians of every condition that no one in the future dare to vex anyone, despoil him of his possessions, reduce to servitude, or lend aid and favour to those who give themselves up to these practices, or exercise that inhuman traffic by which the Blacks, as if they were not men but rather animals, having been brought into servitude, in no matter what way, are, without any distinction, in contempt of the rights of justice and humanity, bought, sold, and devoted sometimes to the hardest labour. Further, in the hope of gain, propositions of purchase being made to the first owners of the Blacks, dissensions and almost perpetual conflicts are aroused in these regions. We reprove, then, by virtue of Our Apostolic Authority, all the practices above mentioned as absolutely unworthy of the Christian name. By the same Authority We prohibit and strictly forbid any Ecclesiastic or lay person from presuming to defend as permissible this traffic in Blacks under no matter what pretext or excuse, or from publishing or teaching in any manner whatsoever, in public or privately, opinions contrary to what We have set forth in this Apostolic Letter. 

— From In Supremo Apostolatus^[2]

The Roman Catholic Church, in 1839, came out squarely against slavery.

Can you even imagine if the world listened and followed?

From a Catholic nun on Paul Ryan's Republican budget proposal

Bill Maher on the Pope, Part II

And this is where it gets really funny.  And true:

Here's your "Catholic Education" for you

So many of us don't know our history:

Catholic Church enslaved 30,000 Irish women in Magdalene Laundries until 1996

From the article:

The Irish Prime Minister gave a partial apology today for the government’s role in a 74-year scandal in which, a new official government report says, over 10,000 women were forced to work without pay at commercial laundries called Magdalene Laundries, operated by the Catholic Church for “crimes” as small as not paying a train ticket.

Wikipedia notes that the estimate of the number of women who were used as forced slave labor by the Catholic Church in Ireland alone goes as high as 30,000 over the entire time the Magdalene laundries were in operation.

The last Magdalene laundry closed in 1996.

Women were locked in, couldn’t leave Magdalene Laundries for months, sometimes years

The women were locked in and not permitted to leave.  And if they tried to get away, the cops would catch them and bring them back. They were quite literally Catholic slave labor working for the government and even Guinness, which would pay the laundries for the women’s slave labor.

Half of the girls enslaved in these Catholic Church prisons were under the age of 23.  The youngest entrant was 9 years old.

Singer Sinead O’Connor was perhaps the most famous Magdalene Laundry slave

Singer Sinead O’Connor was forced to work in a Magdalene Laundry in Dublin:

When I was a young girl, my mother — an abusive, less-than-perfect parent — encouraged me to shoplift. After being caught once too often, I spent 18 months in An Grianán Training Centre, an institution in Dublin for girls with behavioral problems, at the recommendation of a social worker. An Grianán was one of the now-infamous church-sponsored “Magdalene laundries,” which housed pregnant teenagers and uncooperative young women. We worked in the basement, washing priests’ clothes in sinks with cold water and bars of soap. We studied math and typing. We had limited contact with our families. We earned no wages. One of the nuns, at least, was kind to me and gave me my first guitar.

This, however, is, for me, the most difficult to believe and hardest to forgive them for:

No apology from the Catholic Church

Absent from any of the media reports on the scandal that I could find was an apology from the Catholic Church which operated the Magdalene laundries and made handsome profits from contracts with government and hotels.  Oh, found one. It seems the Catholic Church blew the women off.  I know, you’re as surprised as I am:

Victims of the child sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Irish Catholic Church have received an apology and compensation, but no one has taken responsibility for what happened in the laundries. Cardinal Sean Brady, the most senior Catholic cleric in Ireland, met with Justice for Magdalenes in 2010. He said “by today’s standards much of what happened at that time is difficult to comprehend” but that it was a matter for the religious orders who ran the laundries to deal with. The religious orders have declined to meet the women.

The Irish Cardinal wasn’t interested in hearing from people who were hurt and abused — if not sexually, certainly physically and mentally, by the Catholic Church.  And it’s not the Catholic Church’s fault. 

 Where have we heard that story before?

The laundries were run by nuns, many of whom treated the women sent to work there as slaves:

Senator McAleese’s inquiry found that half of the girls and women put to work in the laundries were under the age of 23 and 40%, more than 4,000, spent more than a year incarcerated.

Fifteen percent spent more than five years in the laundries while the average stay was calculated at seven months.

The youngest death on record was 15, and the oldest 95, the report found.

The Irish state is also implicated in the scandal because the police would take women to the asylums after arresting them for trivial offenses and would return runaways.

The story of the Magdalene laundries shows what happens when an institution — in this case the church and the government — is considered beyond criticism. It probably isn’t a coincidence that the last of the laundries closed in 1996, shortly after the first wave of the Catholic pedophile priest scandals hit Ireland.

Let me reiterate that for a moment.  The Catholic Church had slaves as late as 1996.

There is more to the article, too. There are women's brief accounts of what was done to them. It would be worth our time to go the the original article so we all know more of what happened. 

The world needs to know what happened, we need to never forget and we need to make sure things remotely like this are ended and that they're not repeated, of course, ever.